Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ll soon be closing up our Verify Live coverage after a busy Monday, but you’ll continue to see output from our teams in London and Washington DC across BBC News this evening.

Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been covering today.

We started by verifying footage of a Ukrainian drone attack on two Russian amphibious planes at an air base in Russian-occupied Crimea. Throughout the day we brought you more expert analysis on the significance of the attack - and a profile of the early Soviet-era Be-12 aircraft targeted by Ukraine.

Our fact-checking team have also been following Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s pledge to scrap indefinite leave to remain, the settlement status held by more than 400,000 migrants in the UK. Watch Ben Chu’s analysis of how many people could be impacted by the change and read a fact-check of Farage’s claim that “we don’t know” how many people with the status are claiming benefits.

Plus, we’ve verified footage following reports of an Israeli military raid on a university in the occupied West Bank and mapped which European countries are set to recognise a Palestinian state.

Thanks for joining us today. BBC Verify Live will be back tomorrow morning with more.

BBC Verify has been investigating the impact of Reform UK’s proposal outlined earlier to scrap indefinite leave to remain - a form of immigration status people can apply for after they have been in the UK for five years.

While the government has already said it wants to change that to 10 years, Reform’s leader Nigel Farage said he would replace it with a renewable visa system.

Click play below to see our policy and analysis correspondent Ben Chu’s analysis of how many migrants might be affected:

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ve brought you analysis today of Ukraine’s attack on two Russian Beriev Be-12 amphibious military aircraft at the Kacha air base outside Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.

“This is the first defeat of a Be-12 in history,”, external the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) said in its post on Telegram.

We’ve asked four military experts to assess the significance of these strikes.

“Russia doesn't have many Be-12s,” says Alexander Lord from the Sibylline security consultancy, “and while they are old aircraft, their anti-submarine capabilities are likely useful in identifying Ukrainian drone threats.”

Other experts are less sure how important the Be-12 planes are for Russia.

“In and of itself the loss of two obsolete aircraft is not especially significant,” says Justin Bronk from the Royal United Services Institute, who pointed out that there was no guarantee that these aircraft were even operational.

“The practical impact of the strike on Russia’s military capabilities will be very limited,” agrees Mike Plunkett, a naval expert from the defence intelligence company, Janes.

Where all four experts do agree, however, is that the strikes has shown the extent of Ukraine's capability to target Russia's Black Sea Fleet across Crimea.

“This is all part of Ukraine's to-date highly successful anti-access/area denial (A2AD) strategy, which has contained the fleet’s ability to conduct operations in a sea which Moscow had previously considered to be a 'Russian lake',” says Lord.

“The most significant impact of this is informational-psychological, targeting domestic, international, and Russian audiences,” highlights Dr Marina Miron of Kings College London.

“Both Ukraine and Russia are competing not only on the battlefield but also in the information space,” she says.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

BBC Verify is dedicated to examining the facts and claims behind a story to try to determine whether or not it is true - whether that’s a political statement, a video shared on social media, or images from a war zone.

And we’re also keen to hear from you - is there something you think we should investigate? We're particularly interested in claims you have heard or seen that maybe don’t seem right.

Or perhaps you’ve come across something online and want to know if it was created using AI or even a deepfake.

You can send your suggestions to the team here.

Tom Edgington
BBC Verify live editor

Image source, PA Media

Reform UK has claimed it expects 800,000 people to be granted indefinite leave to remain (ILR) between 2026 and 2030. This, the party says, will cost taxpayers £234bn.

Reform’s policy document released earlier about its plans for ILR does not cite a source for the £234bn figure. When asked by BBC Verify, Reform told us the figure comes from its own internal analysis and from a report published by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS).

However, the centre-right think tank has since withdrawn the number saying its “overall cost estimates should no longer be used”, external, citing changes to the data it was calculated from.

Under its previous modelling, the CPS estimated 800,000 migrants who arrived in the UK between between January 2021 and June 2024 would eventually end up claiming ILR once they start becoming eligible in five years’ time. The eventual net fiscal cost of this - spread over the next several decades - is £234bn, according to the report.

The CPS told BBC Verify its withdrawal of the figure was down to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) - which monitors public spending - changing the way it defined a “typical migrant”. This meant its cost estimates were no longer valid.

In a statement, external, the CPS says it “has been in communication with the OBR and other experts for clarity and will be publishing an updated estimate in due course”.

When asked about this during the news conference, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage dismissed concerns saying the £234bn figure was “without doubt” too low and he suspects more than 800,000 people will end up applying for ILR.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ve been reporting today on Ukrainian claims to have attacked two amphibious Russian planes - video of which we have geolocated to an air base near Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.

The Be-12 Chayka is a Soviet anti-submarine aircraft designed in the 1950s. Built by the manufacturer Beriev to be capable of flying from both land and water, the Be-12 was the successor to the Be-6 flying boat and shares many of its predecessor’s amphibious features.

To demonstrate its age, the photograph used in the graphic below shows a Be-12 on display at a Russian museum.

“Efforts to replace the aging Be-12s with more modern Be-200 anti-submarine aircraft have stalled in recent years,” Alexander Lord from the Sibylline security consultancy told me.

“While old and designed for a different age of naval warfare, the Be-12s have likely played a role in conducting maritime patrols and protecting Russia's Black Sea Fleet from Ukraine's uncrewed surface vehicles or maritime drones,” said Lord.

According to the UK Ministry of Defence, external, the aircraft remains a “key Russia asset” in those air patrols that are “flying out of bases in occupied Crimea.”

“It is possible that this was just a target of opportunity, or it may be that Ukraine is seeking to degrade Russia’s maritime surveillance capabilities in advance of a specific operation,” added Mike Plunkett, a naval expert from the defence intelligence company, Janes.

Becky Dale and Jess Carr
BBC Verify

France, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is expected to announce its recognition of a Palestinian state later today.

Also expected to recognise Palestinian statehood are Belgium, Malta and Luxembourg, as well as the European microstates of San Marino and Andorra.

These anticipated announcements come on the heels of yesterday’s recognitions by the UK, Australia, Canada and Portugal - which means more than three-quarters of the 193 current UN member states have recognised Palestinian statehood.

After France, the US would be the only permanent UN Security Council member not recognising a Palestinian state, now that the UK has joined Russia and China.

Palestine has no internationally agreed boundaries, capital city or military - making recognition significant but largely symbolic, according to analysis by our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams.

By co-ordinating these announcements, governments are expressing their support for the viability of a future Palestinian state.

Follow the latest developments in our separate live coverage here.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage earlier claimed “we don’t know” how many people with indefinite leave to remain (ILR) are claiming benefits “because the figures aren’t available”.

While there might not be a breakdown of all the different benefits claimed by people with ILR in the UK, we do know how many of them claim Universal Credit - a type of financial support to help with living costs in the UK.

About a third of people claiming Universal Credit were in work as of June this year.

In July, there were 213,666 people with ILR claiming Universal Credit, according to figures dating back to 2022 published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). , external

Separate estimates from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford put the total population of non-EU citizens with ILR at 430,000 at the end of 2024.

DWP figures show that the number of people with ILR claiming Universal Credit has been rising every month over the past year - and has more than doubled over the past three years.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

We’ve been looking into reports of an Israeli military (IDF) raid on a university in the occupied West Bank overnight.

One video we have verified shows military vehicles driving in convoy towards the Birzeit University site at its southern boundary, a few miles to the north of Ramallah.

Another piece of verified footage shows a person dressed in black throwing an item across the floor of an entrance to a theatre on the university premises.

In a third clip, wooden poles, posters and clothing is strewn across a pavement outside a different university building. The person filming says “we see the occupation forces have ripped pictures of the martyrs that were in Birzeit campus and thrown them on the ground”.

According to a local report and a video filmed at the same location, this building was targeted by the IDF in November 2023.

In a statement posted on Facebook this morning, Birzeit University accused the IDF of detaining and assaulting members of its security staff, external. It said several buildings were raided and property was damaged.

BBC Verify has approached the IDF for comment.

Image source, Instragram

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

We’ve been looking at Reform UK’s proposal to end indefinite leave to remain.

Indefinite leave to remain - also known as "settlement" - gives migrants the right to live, work and study in the UK permanently.

To be given this immigration status migrants typically must have lived in the UK for five years on a qualifying visa, although under new government proposals this is set to double to 10 years for some people.

The number of settlement grants given to migrants by the UK government has been increasing since 2018.

The most recent figures show that there were 163,353 grants in the year ending June 2025, external, a rise of nearly a fifth compared with 138,074 in the same period last year.

The highest number of grants were given to people on work visas. There were 59,766 of these in the year to June, making up more than a third of all grants in this period.

There were more than two million people on temporary visas who had a path to settlement in the UK at the end of last year, according to estimates by the Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, external.

It did this analysis following the government’s announcement about changes to settlement back in May, saying at the time that "a lack of policy details and limited data make it impossible to produce a precise estimate of how many people will be affected".

As we’ve been reporting here that Ukraine says it has successfully destroyed two Russian amphibious planes for the first time in history.

The video was posted on Telegram by Ukraine’s military intelligence service and shows what appears to be three drone strikes against aircraft at an air base outside Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.

The infrared footage verified by our team, which has video game-style graphics edited in, starts with a strike on an Mi-8 helicopter, followed by two strikes on the Be-12 Chayka amphibious anti-submarine planes.

You can watch the full video below.

Thomas Copeland and Fridon Kiria
BBC Verify

Image source, Ukrainian HUR

We’ve just verified a video released by Ukraine’s military intelligence service showing what appears to be a series of drone strikes on Russian aircraft.

The video, which features dramatic background music and video game-style graphics edited in, includes infrared footage of two strikes on Be-12 Chayka amphibious planes, as well as an Mi-8 helicopter being attacked.

The Soviet-era amphibious aircraft, meaning they are able to take off on water as well as land, are designed to target submarines and conduct maritime patrols.

“This is the first defeat of a Be-12 in history,”, external the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) said in its post on Telegram. We are not able to verify the authenticity of this claim.

By matching the pattern of runways and buildings we’ve managed to geolocate the footage to an airfield close to Sevastopol in Crimea, which has been illegally occupied by Russia since 2014.

Reverse image searches also indicate that the footage is newly uploaded because it has not appeared on the internet before today.

Our team are speaking to military experts now so that we can bring you analysis of the significance of these strikes later.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Welcome to BBC Verify Live - the page where we share the work of our specialists in verification, fact-checking, data journalism and disinformation debunking.

Our team is looking at a variety of stories today, including:

• Investigating Ukrainian claims that an overnight drone attack has destroyed two Russian amphibious aircraft. We're verifying footage posted by the Ukrainian military and asking experts why these planes would be targeted
• Verifying footage showing an apparent Israeli army raid on the Birzeit University near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank
• Fact-checking how many people who have come to the UK have indefinite leave to remain ahead of an expected announcement by Reform UK that the party would scrap it

Elsewhere we've been looking at how many countries across the world have recognised Palestinian statehood after the UK, Canada and Australia did so yesterday. Other countries - including France - are expected to join them today - you can follow developments on this BBC News live page.

As well as previous BBC Verify Lives you can also see more of the team's work on our pages on the BBC News website.